


What Was, What Has Been, What Yet May Be

by Yeomanrand



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, captain america: the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Collection: Fandom Stocking 2015, Gen, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Present Tense, past history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5638246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post CATWS: Natasha receives first a text, then a phone call, from a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Was, What Has Been, What Yet May Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).



Natasha is face down in her pillows when her phone buzzes. She turns her head far enough to crack an eye and glare. The message indicator flashes at her from the corner, and the phone does not do her the courtesy of spontaneously combusting. 

She groans and rolls over, pushes herself up the bed with the heel of one foot and picks up the phone. She really hopes Steve and Sam haven't done anything profoundly stupid, like getting caught invading Latveria. She's glad they're mopping up from the Triskelion fallout, but push is rapidly coming to shove and the politics are getting uglier by the day.

She presses the wake button, and stares at the anglicized Russian message.

_**Pauk dorogaya?** _

She scowls at the phone. Only one person ever called her "spider darling." The number's anonymous, of course.

"Friday?"

"Yes, Ms. Romanoff?"

She waggles her phone. "I need a trace."

"Starting."

Trust _him_ to reach out to her before coffee.

Her fingers fly over the keyboard.

_**You don't get to. Not anymore.** _

She has a minute to accept a clear memory, warm arms around her, before he replies.

 _ **Chernaya Vdova, then.**_ Her call sign.

 _ **You should come in.**_ He should turn himself in, she means, but she doesn't know if she really wants him punished.

_**You know I can't, little spider. Not yet.** _

Her lips set. 

_**I got plenty of red in my ledger, too, Zimniy Soldat.**_ His call sign. Professionalism, she supposes. Or distancing and dissociating. _**You don't have to stay out in the cold.**_

There's a very long pause. "Friday?"

"I am having some trouble, Ms. Romanoff. Please continue the conversation if at all possible."

_**I'm where I belong. For now anyway.** _

Her dying swan curled all along the back of his broken prince; rosin and dust and tulle and sweat and the piercing note of warm metal and what she had learned was no mere gunmetal lubricant.

_**The longer you wait, the worse things will be.** _

_**Toeing the party line now?** _

She doesn't know how to answer the question. Too many meanings. Too many parties. 

_Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that…_ She thought she had killed him, after the surgery in the Red Room. Thought he had been her final examination.

There's been no follow-up text. She thinks she may have lost him right now. Her body registers no emotion; she still has him locked up among her dead.

The phone rings. She doesn't startle. Still an anonymous number. She answers.

"I'm sorry I shot you," he says. "Well. The Me-that-is regrets shooting you. The Me-that-was didn't care; you were in the way of the mission. I know now your employers approached you to protect him because they thought I might hesitate about killing you. They weren't aware what I was, how unmade I was every time I came in. The odds against my remembering you at all, let alone caring if you got in my way. Only…"

"Only?" _Do you know what it's like to be unmade?_

"Only I think I did remember. And I cared. On some level. Because I could have killed both of you when I took that shot. He was my mission. You weren't. I had enough leeway to choose."

She falls silent for a moment, not about allowing Friday time to track the call — she already knows nothing will come of the trace, because he's a ghost and he always has been. An enigma, unknowable and confusing and dark. 

A stolen kiss and his hands strong beneath her armpits; two separate memories because he would not have dared on the rehearsal stage or in the practice room.

"I'm not sure I should thank you."

Her ears are sharp enough to pick out the soft whirr of his arm. "I wouldn't. I'm not asking forgiveness, either."

"Just apologizing?" She's not laughing, really, the corner of her mouth twisting up and changing the tone of her voice.

"Yes, ma'am." She can hear the soft catch in his voice, the hesitation. "I'd like to dance with you again. Someday."

" _Za chem poydyosh, to i naydyosh._ "

He laughs, a sound she's never heard before. She feels pleasant warmth in her stomach.

"Then here's to both of us finding what we seek," he answers. " _Dasvidaniya_ , Natalia."

The line closes, before she can say anything more. She tells Friday to send a report to Tony and Steve. Sinks back into her bed, throws her forearm over her eyes, and tries to rebuild the shattered calm in her mind.


End file.
